AN OCTOBER DIARY. 877 



water was very still, and so clear that the bottom of the 

 pool, twenty feet below me, could be distinctly seen. The 

 shad were there, quiet as possible, and unmoved by any 

 influence without themselves. I believe they had been 

 playing — something most fishes do very frequently. 



More birds arrived to-day from the north ; some to 

 spend the winter, as the white-throated sparrows, king- 

 lets, and a sly, evil-minded shrike ; others to pass on, as 

 a few swallows, and straggling warblers, that probably 

 had company thus far, and must now journey alone, or 

 wait for still tardier birds. These warblers were as 

 quiet as mice, and had none of their accustomed spring- 

 time activity. Perhaps they thought insect-hunting 

 Vv'ould profit them nothing — but why should it not ? 

 Before their very faces wandered kinglets and tits, gath- 

 ering food from every nook and cranny into which they 

 peeped. Could they not take a hint frotn them ? Still, 

 they may have been too tired and not hungry. Enough 

 to know they were here to-day — are here, this cool even- 

 ing — and to-morrow will be on their journey again ; or, 

 by the clear moonlight, while the bird-world generally 

 is at rest, will they climb to the clouds, and amid those 

 dizzy heights pass southward, propelled by a wonder- 

 ful flight-power, which, when hugging the earth, no one 

 would suspect them to possess. 



For some time after sunset I heard the steady ham- 

 mering of a woodpecker in the lane, and, wondering why 

 one place should be so long worked at, went thither to 

 investigate. In a dead limb of an old apple tree — dead, 

 but very hard, as it proved — a flicker was working away 



